Backed by big business, the USA is blocking
proposed changes to the World Trade Organisations (WTO) rules
on drug patents in advance of the vital WTO Summit in November.
Changes that would mean cheaper medicines for poor people.

World Trade Organisation Rules on patents
keep the price of vital medicines high in developing countries.
Infectious diseases kill more that 14 million people every year,
yet many would live if they could afford medicines which are priced
beyond their reach.

There are demands across the world from
governments, charities, churches and health bodies for the WTO
to change the rules that govern patents in order to allow vital
medicines to be produced and sold more cheaply. But the USA opposes
this, and is pressurising developing countries to apply even more
restrictive rules at national level.

Unless activists force the United States
Government to give in, Big Pharma and Bush's U.S. Trade Representative
Bob Zoellick will derail a meaningful declaration on access to
life saving drugs and the WTO patent rules before the Qatar meeting.

PROTEST DEADLY US TRADE POLICY
ON PATENTS AND AIDS DRUGS

After three years of campaigning, the countries
of the world are finally ready to relax the monopolistic policies
that keep AIDS drugs out of the hands of millions.

Only one nation is still insisting that
patents and profits are more valuable than the lives of the poor.

Days before a WTO meeting where US trade
officials will again ransom millions of lives for drug company
profits, US Trade Representative Bob Zoellick will speak at the
Philadelphia summit of the Corporate Council on Africa.

WE DEMAND:

1. Poor countries must have the option of
exempting crucial drugs
from the patent system all together.

2. Whenever patent protection on a drug
is blocking access, there
must be easy, straightforward mechanisms for overriding patent
protection.

3. Countries must have the right to expedite
compulsory licensing of
medications without fear of retaliation from the US or any other
government.

4. Countries must have the leeway to grant
compulsory licensing to
manufacturers in other countries (compulsory licensing for export).

5. The existing public health provisions
in the WTO "TRIPS
Agreement" must guide the reading of the entire Agreement.

Third World Network,
Health Gap Coalition, Oxfam International and others are campaigning
to cut the cost of vital medicines in poor countries. This petition is part of these campaigns
- it calls on the US government to stop blocking changes and clarifications
to WTO rules on drug patents and to demonstrate its commitment
to putting people before the profits of powerful drug companies
at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Qatar this November.

Oppose attempts
to sneak through a bill on fast track trade authority. Fast Track
trade authority gives the President sweeping powers to negotiate
trade agreements, meaning Congress gets only a thumbs-up or thumbs-down
vote once the Bush Administration has decided all the details.
The Bush Administration has continued to push harmful positions
in FTAA, WTO and other trade negotiations that would continue
to block greater access to HIV/AIDS medication, and fast track
is a rubber-stamping of their willingness to write off the lives
of people with HIV worldwide.see
more>>>

The event scheduled for Sunday,
September 30 (details below) has been cancelled. The IMF/World
Bank meetings, as well as the large September 30 rally and march
our event was scheduled to feed into, have been cancelled; leaving
little reason to hold our event at this specific and difficult
time.

As a member of the Health GAP Coalition
and ACT UP Philadelphia, I wish to express our sorrow for the
events of last week and thank our coalition partners -- AFL-CIO,
Africa Action, Jobs with Justice, Oxfam and the Student Global
AIDS Campaign -- for working together to host what would have
been a powerful and important contribution to Global Justice Week
and our struggles for greater access to HIV/AIDS medication worldwide.

Many of our members feel that it
is important to encourage reflection and dialogue in the weeks
and months to come, and to reaffirm our commitment to our fellow
activists, to people with HIV in the United States and worldwide,
and to struggles for economic and social change that seek to make
our world more just and secure.

ACT UP Philadelphia will be participating
in the Interfaith Service in Washington DC on Saturday, September
29; here are details on that event:

Interfaith Service of Commitment
to Restoration and Justicein the Global Economy

St. Aloysius Church
North Capitol and I Streets, NW
Washington DC
located near the Union Station metro

On September 11, 2001 unconscionable
acts ofterrorism
brought searing pain to communities across the United States.
People watched in horror and sadness as the terrible aftermath
of these acts unfolded. We looked for ways to help and witnessed
an outpouring of compassion and solidarity from within and beyond
our borders. We are mourning the loss of loved ones and friends
and of strangers as well. No one escaped unscathed. We seek and
support actions to enact justice for this terrorism justice that
is not vengeance or the destruction of more innocents.

In keeping with this tragic reality,
demonstrations scheduled for the weekend of the World Bank and
IMF annual meetings in Washington D.C. have been canceled. It
seems even more urgent, however, for us to come together in prayer,
for the restoration we seek of justice in the global economy is
an essential prerequisite to peace.

The terrible events we have witnessed
in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania should lead us to
reflect on who we are as a people and how we are in the world.
A period of national introspection may help us retrieve a measure
of hope out of the havoc and begin to transform our relationships
with other peoples and nations. Perhaps now is the time to ask
ìWhy?î and to address the roots of entrenched anti-U.S.
sentiment around the world.

We must not allow to fester on our
planet the pools of rage and despair that breed terrorism. These
pools will only be drained, the despair ended, by a sense of planetary
community, by an outpouring of compassion and solidarity.

Powerful witness has been given
to our belief in the value of each human life, the importance
of family and community and the common good. We watched extremely
important symbols of power and wealth crumble and fortunes go
up in smoke, but our full attention was on saving lives not symbols
and on helping each other. Status, rank and income level disappeared
as did race and religion and political differences. In the chaos,
everyone was equal and equally important.

Can we build upon that miracle as
we begin again to breathe? Can it transform our way of being as
a society and as a nation in the global community? Can we commit
ourselves to the emergence of a planetary community where the
violence of poverty and exclusion is eradicated along with the
violence of terrorism?

That will be our prayer. Please
join us.For additional information, please contact the Religious
Working Group on the World Bank and IMF at 202-832-1780.

When I despair,
I remember that all through history the way of truth and love
has always won. There have been tyrants and murders and for a
time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall.
Think of it, ALWAYS. --Mahatma Gandhi

------------------------------------------------------

Information on the event which has
been cancelled:

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
WASHINGTON DC:
FIGHTING GLOBAL AIDS

UNITE FOR A DAY OF EDUCATION AND
ACTION TO END THE AIDS CRISIS

EVERY DAY, THERE ARE 8OOO DEATHS
FROM AIDS WORLDWIDE. WORLD BANK, IMF AND
U.S. TRADE POLICIES RAISE THE DEATH TOLL AND FUEL THE SPREAD OF
THE VIRUS.
WE WILL NOT BE SILENT WHILE OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS DIE.

The Global AIDS Rally and March
will unite people with HIV from around the world, AIDS organizations,
African American community activists, African immigrant community
leaders, human rights advocates, union members, labor leaders
and allies in our commitment to fight the growing AIDS epidemic.

We will join in testimony and song,
uniting in our call for an end to policies of global apartheid
that increasingly impact the lives of people of color, whether
U.S. citizens, immigrants, or people in poor or developing nations.

We will gather together from the
communities most heavily impacted by HIV in the United States
and worldwide. We will focus on the role of government policies,
corporate practices, and debt and trade agreements that escalate
the epidemic and create obstacles to saving the lives of 35 million
people infected with HIV.

HIV/AIDS MARCH 12 NOON - 1 PM
WASHINGTON DC IN THE NATIONAL MALL AREA

After the rally, you are invited
to join us for a march to the Global Justice Rally at the Ellipse.
We will gather at Freedom Plaza or a nearby location; for updates,
call 267-475-2680 or see www.globaltreatmentaccess.org.

This will be a peaceful, short march
of people with HIV, their families, loved ones, union members
and community activists. We welcome families and people with disabilities
to join us.

These events are part of the Global
Justice week from September 25 - October 4, in which tens of thousands
of peoplewill gather in Washington DC and in their communities
to demand changes in the policies of the World Bank, IMF,and other
institutions whose actions prioritize profit over human need.

For more information on the week
of actions, see
www.globalizethis.org or the Global Justice links at www.aflcio.org.

95 per cent of the world's 36 million
people with HIV have no access to the HIV drugs that are available
to people with HIV in the U.S. and other wealthy countries. There
are 8,000 people with AIDS dying preventable deaths each day-most
of them in sub Saharan Africa.

Super profitable drug companies-most
of them based in the U.S.-keep the price of medications too high
to be affordable for the majority of the world's people with AIDS.
People with HIV who live in poor countries face a death sentence,
while people with HIV who live in rich countries have a "treatable
condition." When poor countries try to manufacture low-cost
generic versions of overpriced AIDS drugs, the U.S. is the first
government the big companies call on for help in stopping it.

The U.S. government-the richest
on the planet-refuses to give more than a fraction of the $10
billion in new money needed each year to fight the greatest plague
humans have experienced in modern times. In fact, the U.S. and
the pharmaceutical companies fight every day for trade and economic
policies that are making access to life extending drugs more difficult
in poor countries.

U.S. POLICY: FANNING THE FLAMES

U.S. Policy on Global AIDS is Racist:
the U.S. typically funds about 25% of the cost of UN health and
development projects. When the UN announced a new $9-10 billion
Global AIDS Fund-the first ever that would fund AIDS treatment
in poor countries-the U.S. was eager to take all the credit for
being the first donor, but refused to give more than $200 million.
$200 million is nothing for the U.S. government-the Bush Administration
wants a $26 billion increase in the military spending budget for
2002 but is refusing to cough up its fair share in the fight against
AIDS. The Administration priorities are clear: the lives of millions
of primarily Black people are simply unimportant.

and Deadly: poor countries owe billions
in debt that can never be repaid to the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund. These international institutions lend money to
poor countries with deadly strings attached: countries are forced
to revamp their economies so spending on health and education
disappears. These policies worsen the AIDS epidemic and cripple
the ability of poor countries to fight back. The U.S. is the largest
player in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, and
a big believer in its deadly policies.

The U.S. also dominates the World
Trade Organization (WTO) where it fights side by side with drug
companies for agreements that require poor countries to re-write
their patent rules and adopt strict patents on drugs, sending
prices through the roof on life extending AIDS medication.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Health GAP (Global Access Project) was created only three years
ago by U.S. AIDS activists who were outraged that U.S. policy
was blocking medication access for people with AIDS worldwide.
Health GAP fights campaigns to win access to affordable medication
in poor countries, and that means confronting the U.S. politicians,
drug companies, and other decision-makers responsible.

In September, Health GAP will be
part of history-making protests against the IMF and World Bank.
In November, Health GAP is targeting the U.S. objection to changing
the WTO patent rules in favor of access to drugs in poor countries.
While the federal budget is being hashed out in the Capitol this
fall, Health GAP will be on hand, demanding that our lawmakers
fight for full funding for the Global AIDS Fund.